Aristotle, Art and Modernism
Omar Haneef '96
that everything is pomo (anything is pomo?) so maybe it does) but I can't
find any other station...er...channel (?) to bounce these ideas off and I
don't suppose anyone minds too much. If you do know of a suitable newsgroup.
let me know.
Let me work to my question. First, I will build a model of
Aristotle's conception of art as explained to me by Richard Eldridge (just so you
know its not original but interpreted): Aristotle believes that what we have
to do in order to find out how to live our lives is to look around and see
who leads happy full lives and then study what actions allow them to lead
these kind of lives. The emphasis here is on ACTION or (better yet)
ACTIVITY. The discovery and performance of these actions is the telos of
human life.
What ART does, according to my interpretation of Eldridge's
Aristotle, is present the performance (mimes the action) so as to reveal the
essential form of the action. Tragedy is the unsuccessful attempt to perform
these actions, comedy is the successful alternative. This may strike us
Pomos as essentializing humanity but I don't want to harp on that boring
line. What is important, and I'll come back to this, is that Aristotle
considered the plot of primary importance in revealing the form of these
actions.
First I want to level a piece of criticism: I read tragedy as the
failure of sample bias. That is to say that an individual may gather a great
deal of emperical evidence to suggest what a good action is but if the
circumstances are altered then this action will present itself as an extreme
instead of a mean (a bad action instead of a good one). Example: I notice
that everyone around me is happy if they work hard and save cash. I do the
same but inflation goes through the ceiling leaving me penniless.
What do you poster think Aristotle would think of modernism, modern
art or MTV? These movements are reacting against linear narratives and, I
suspect, plots (I'm not even sure I would distinguish between the two).
Would Aristotle consider these art? More interestingly, IF Aristotle had to
explain the Art of modern art, how would he do it? How do you suppose
Aristotle's model of art could be tamed to explain modern art?
-Omar Haneed
ETTINGS
> What do you poster think Aristotle would think of modernism, modern
>art or MTV? These movements are reacting against linear narratives and, I
>suspect, plots (I'm not even sure I would distinguish between the two).
>Would Aristotle consider these art? More interestingly, IF Aristotle had to
>explain the Art of modern art, how would he do it? How do you suppose
>Aristotle's model of art could be tamed to explain modern art?
probably catch up quickly as in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which
had Freud trying to pick up chicks at the mall-- one girl said, as he
turned away--"What a geek!" For one think, Aristotle would either have
to change his position or be excluded from any serious discussion.
You're turning recent philosophy upside down: rather than we re-inter-
preting Aristotle, you're asking Aristotle to re-interpret himself from
the vantage point of present technology--a kind of temporal loop like in
Terminator.
Primarily, he wouldn't be able to read the codes because non-linearity
is a learned response. For instance, the commonly used jump cut in film:
a man gets up from bed and goes to the bathroom. The door to his bathroom
then (through the jump cut) becomes the door to an office. The jump cut
is so commonly used that we don't even question the most obvious fact:
how did he get from one place to another? What happened to the stairs,
the parking lot, the drive, the elevator to the office, the walk down
the hall? Where are these events? Would Aristotle be startled by such
a simple temporal and spatial transition or would he immediately and
naturally understand it, accept it? Is (in other words) the jump cut
learned or is it a natural event that any culture would immediately know.
Early film-makers often registered problems in this area because audiences
did not know "how to read the codes," and the TV and film industry
teaches these codes ever second of the day. Thinking back now on
films I saw when I was much younger, I didn't understand the codes and
missed some vital information: the codes always entailed a tacit understanding
between the film-maker and the audience. How could Aristotle understand
the codicity of non-linearity (something as perplexing as Pulp Fiction)?
He would need a tutor, and then after having learned the codes, the
signs and the signifiers he would probably never want to go back to
Ancient Greece. Why bother with the crowded dirty marketplace when you
can have the luxury of the mall? Ron
sagdsg
>preting Aristotle, you're asking Aristotle to re-interpret himself from
>the vantage point of present technology--a kind of temporal loop like in
>Terminator.
> can have the luxury of the mall? Ron
1.you are forgetting the nature of the agora, the acropolis and the
residential quarters in ancient Greece. Besises, the theatre had a view.
2.because greek architecture is better, and you are less likely to slip on
polished marble or get your sandals caught in the escalator.
Everyone, and I mean Every One, went to the toga parties.
(Apart, of course, from Epicurus).
Erik
PS how can Socrates live an ascetic life, and have a family, and promote
the sort of life that he did in the Republic? (yup, serious question
creeping in. Sorry).